i’m writing this to you before i nip out (i am always nipping out, it’s funny) to get some groceries and then i’m going to make a soup to bring to my mother who isn’t really gelling with hospital food. but i know what she’ll eat, and what she’ll enjoy, even if it’s only a few mouthfuls, and i know that the fact that i have made and brought it to her will be as nourishing, maybe more than the soup itself. there will be nothing in it but what i have assembled and cohered myself, and my hands will have put work into all parts of it. lest you think i am some kind of saint yesterday i also gave her a calendar of sexy local firemen which i bought at the mall while xmas shopping because firemen, and also because the proceeds went to a children’s mental health charity. she found it hilarious and it is now sitting happily next to the photo of her grandchildren which i also brought.
i think a lot lately about constraints, and the still large space for action within them. i can’t fix anything (i don’t even know what fixing would entail in this context) but i can do these small but not insignificant things. as i put myself to these small tasks which at one point included (but now no more will, most likely) watching a film with her, or working in the garden, or going for the smallest of walks and marvelling at birdsong i find myself increasingly aware of the small but not insignificant acts of which i am recipient: the invitation to dinner with friends, the little pot of flowers left on my porch, the person who calls me every few days to check in, and more.
tiny, but maybe enough.